Not weird, just different

   One thing that I really love about staying in one place for more than just a few days and living with a host family is you get to see the culture as part of it. Not just outside of it. Sure I plan to do tourist type activities, but I also get to experience everything as a Swiss person does too. The family I am with is rather diverse themselves, but they have lived in Switzerland for 10 years now so they know the customs well.


   So arrived at Zurich on Tuesday. Completely exhausted of course! My friend met me at the airport and we took the train to Basel and then the tram to Muttenz. And then her mom picked us up by car just because I had all my luggage.

   My first impression of Switzerland is how all the houses are smushed together and tall. Not very wide at all. This is because the cost of living is so high because land is scarce in Switzerland. Every part of land is used for something. No waste. Not like in the US where I person has acres of land and does not farm or anything. The house I’m staying in has a one car garage (as families usually have one or no car-they are not really necessary because they have an amazing transportation system). It does not have AC. It is not needed. It is three stories and also has a basement. In the basement is this vault like room, which is a requirement that every couple houses have one. It has an oxygen thing and also a closed off tunnel that can take you….well, I’m not sure where. This is for emergencies of war or bad weather (which they really don’t have here anyways). There are lots of windows and nothing is screened. The blinds are this thick metal and they are outside the window. You close them completely at night to keep it dark and to keep out unwanted people. I’m sleeping on the top floor, which is rather kind of like an attic-ish. There’s a window that comes out of the roof. So I have a great view. All the houses have lots of flowers and fruit growing in their small bit of land against their houses. I saw raspberries, blackberries, apples, grapes, and these berries called current that are not grown in the US. Many of the houses have flowers like baskets beneath each window. They have quite the green thumbs here!

   Another big difference is the eating habits. You wake in the morning and eat breakfast of course. This is usually cereal or bread or whatever. Lunch, though, is the main meal of the day. Kids are released from school to go home and eat a long lunch. There is none of this “pack your lunch with peanut butter and jelly,” but you go home and eat a great big home cooked meal with your whole family. Businesses close pretty much from noon to 1 or 2 or whatever so they employees may go home to eat with their families. Dinner time you generally eat bread with cheese, jams, or sliced meat and fruit.

   The school system is also very, very different. Each canton (which is like a state in Switzerland) has their own variation. I am staying in the county based canton of Basel in a village (population 17,000) called Muttenz. Kindergarten is on its own. And I don’t really know much about the middle yet, but when you go to high school you can either be an apprenticeship for the career you want or you go to a gymnasium, which is equal to an American high school and the first two year of college (the basic core classes). Then you go to the university to study law, economics, medicine or whatever. But they do not have specific majors, you study ALL of it. It’s not just marketing in the business aspect, but ALL of business. Accounting, marketing, management, etc. The education system is really complicated and I don’t really know too much about it myself so I can explain it well. Unlike in the U.S. it is pretty much impossible to work a job and attend the university. There are not many part time jobs here either. You may probably work at a clothing shop but you can’t be a part-time teller or anything like that. When you attend the university, you study hard and play your sports (which are a big deal!) and socialize. They are very much about the attitudes that you are only young once so do not worry about being an adult yet.

   Switzerland, for those who do not know much about this county, is rather unique. It is a small country surrounded by Germany, France, Italy and Austria. I am staying in the German part of Switzerland. It is mainly German customs and they have a sort of Swiss-German dialect in the language, BUT they are NOT Germans. Never make that mistake. It is a huge insult. Then along the French border is the French Swiss. And along the south is the Italian Swiss. These regions look very much like Italy, Germany, and France in their architecture and styles but they are all Swiss. I haven’t explored these yet, but I will keep you updated.

   Well, that’s all I really have for now. I posted some picture on facebook showing some other small differences between Switzerland and the U.S. but I haven’t really taken too many pictures yet. I I’m in so much awe and trying to blend in!

Pre-travels: A dichotomy between excitement and nervousness

   St. Augustine once said, "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page." Well, I've always been a big reader so I figure I should read this World book. Discover a few things, learn something about myself. And so, I am embarking on one of the greatest adventures of my life...studying abroad for a semester.

   I'm a junior in college and studying abroad is something I've wanted to do since my freshman year of high school. I leave Monday morning August 23rd, 2010 to live with a friend in Switzerland before I go to school in Sunderland, England. The semester doesn't begin until the end of September so I figure I might as well go spend time with my good Swiss friend. She was a foriegn exchange student herself while we both were in high school.

   The question I get most from people when I tell them I'm going abroad is "aren't you scared?" Well, yes, as a matter of the fact, I am. Terrified. I'm naturally a quieter, somewhat shy girl. Sure, I went away from home for college, but it was only two hours and my roomate was a girl who went to the same high school as me. I'm worried about getting lost, relying on public transportation, language/culture barriers, not making new friends, etc. etc. etc. But I'm not letting my worries stop me. It is my deepest desire to go forward in life, not dwell in my "what if''s." Some have called me brave, but perhaps I'm just foolish. Nevertheless, I predict I am going to learn a lot about myself.

   This is my first EVER  blog. I was never good at writing in my diary growing up so let's hope my blog is filled with more then just "Dear Diary, I promise to write in you more often" every few months. I created this blog to update friends and family of my experiences while abroad. It probably will be maybe once a week at the min. but I'm still excited to keep my buddies updated on my life since I won't see them all the time like I use to.

   ALSO, I want to apologize right off the bat with my grammer mistakes and sentence structures. I've been known with my past English teachers for sometimes rambling and thinking faster then I write/type so my sentences don't always make the most sense! :)

As they say in England: Pip Pip Cheerio! Be back soon